Dresses Quotes - Page 34

• What does competency in the long run mean? It means to all reasonable beings, cleanliness of person, decency of dress, courtesy of manners, opportunities for education, the delights of leisure, and the bliss of giving.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Running, Mean, Opportunity

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.293

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• It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat; and worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them,--for every one, sees how we dress, but none see how we live, except we choose to let them. But the truly great are, by universal suffrage, exempted from these trammels, an may live or dress as they please.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mean, Men, Coats

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.121

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• What a fine-looking thing is war!
  Yet, dress it as we may, dress and feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it,--what is it, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform!

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Song, War, Gold

  Douglas William Jerrold (1846). “The Chronicles of Clovernook: With Some Account of the Hermit of Bellyfulle”, p.142

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• Affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body.

  William Hazlitt

  Mind, Body

  William Hazlitt (1852). “Men and manners: sketches and essays”, p.43

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• A coquette is one that is never to be persuaded out of the passion she has to please, nor out of a good opinion of her own beauty: time and years she regards as things that only wrinkle and decay other women, forgetting that age is written in the face, and that the same dress which became her when she was young now only makes her look older.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Passion, Wrinkles, Years

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• Too great carelessness, equally with excess in dress, multiplies the wrinkles of old age, and makes its decay still more conspicuous.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Wrinkles, Age, Excess

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• Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.

  Honore de Balzac

  Simplicity, Inspire, Disrespect

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• Happiness lends poetic charms to woman, and dress adorns her like a delicate tinge of rouge.

  Honore de Balzac

  Women, Poetic, Charm

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• If a woman is poorly dressed, you notice her dress. If a woman is impeccably dressed, you notice the woman.

  Coco Chanel

  Ifs

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• The expressive word "quiet" defines the dress, manners, bow, and even physiognomy of every true denizen of St. James and Bond street.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Bows, Quiet, Manners

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• As soon as a woman begins to dress "loud," her manners and conversation partake of the same element.

  Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  Elements, Manners, Loud

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• Virgil has very finely touched upon the female passion for dress and shows, in the character of Camilla; who though she seems to have shaken off all the other weaknesses of her sex, is still described as a woman in this particular.

  Joseph Addison

  Sex, Passion, Character

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.22

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• A saleslady holds up an ugly dress and says, 'This looks much better on.' On what? On fire?

  Rita Rudner

  Fire, Clothes, Looks

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• Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public.

  Charles Lamb

  Rags, Poverty, Suits

  Charles Lamb (1835). “Essays of Elia”, p.127

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• In the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice.

  Charles Lamb

  Female, Poverty, Caprice

  Charles Lamb (1839). “Essays of Elia: To which are Added Letters, and Rosamund”, p.154

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• The breezes of the West African night were intimate and shy, licking the hair, sweeping through cotton dresses with unseemly intimacy, then disappearing into the utter blackness.

  Maya Angelou

  Night, Hair, Shy

  Maya Angelou (2010). “All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes”, p.3, Vintage

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• Those magazine dieting stories always have the testimonial of a woman who wore a dress that could slipcover New Jersey in one photo and thirty days later looked like a well-dressed thermometer.

  Erma Bombeck

  Sex, Food, Jersey

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• A dandy is a clothes-wearing man--a man whose trade, office, and existence consist in the wearing of clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, person and purse is heroically consecrated to this one object--the wearing of clothes, wisely and well; so that, as others dress to live, he lives to dress.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Clothes, Office

  Thomas Carlyle (1871). “The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.166

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• A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love.

  William Shenstone

  Enemy, Add, May

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.109

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• Men of quality never appear more amiable than when their dress is plain. Their birth, rank, title and its appendages are at best indivious and as they do not need the assistance of dress, so, by their disclaiming the advantage of it, they make their superiority sit more easy.

  William Shenstone

  Men, Quality, Titles

  William Shenstone (1868). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.174

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• Those who are incapable of shining out by dress would do well to consider that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out much to their disadvantage.

  William Shenstone

  Clothes, Shining, Disadvantages

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• Persons are oftentimes misled in regard to their choice of dress by attending to the beauty of colors, rather than selecting such colors as may increase their own beauty.

  William Shenstone

  Color, Choices, Style

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• We sacrifice to dress till household joys and comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, and keeps our larder lean.

  William Cowper

  Sacrifice, Joy, Comfort

  William Cowper (1874). “The poetical works of William Cowper, ed: with notes and biographical introd. by William Benham”, p.210

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• Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing, or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse.

  Henry Fielding

  Art, Attitude, Ease

  Henry Fielding, Arthur Murphy (1816). “The Works of Henry Fielding, Esq: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.196

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• Dress has never been at all a straightforward business: so much subterranean interest and complex feeling attaches to it. As a topic ... it has a flowery head but deep roots in the passion. On the subject of dress almost no one, for one or another reason, feels truly indifferent: if their own clothes do not concern them, somebody else's do. ... Ten minutes talk about clothes (except between perfect friends) tends to make everyone present either overbearing, guarded or touchy.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Passion, Roots, Clothes

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